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BitMEX only operates with cryptocurrencies. Not a single US dollar ever passed through it. US citizens were explicitly disallowed to use the service, and the US
by atemerev 6y ago
BitMEX only operates with cryptocurrencies. Not a single US dollar ever passed through it. US citizens were explicitly disallowed to use the service, and the US was blocked by IP. Why it even happened?
- csomar 6y agoFirst, because US citizens still traded on the exchange. (mostly through a VPN); and second, Bitmex was offering a synthetic USD product. That's worse than being a non-regulated entity that offers real dollars.
- spurdoman77 6y agoTough in this case it might be not enough to make authorities from other countries to cooperate. The website is still running and withdrawals are working. For some reason the domain isnt seized.
- csomar 6y agoWithdrawals in Bitmex are processed once a day. Still 18 hours for withdrawals dispatching.
- jkhdigital 6y agoIt's not illegal to offer services to non-US customers, so seizing the domain would be disrupting a legitimate business that clears $500M - $5B in daily volume. BitMEX isn't Silk Road.
- Qasaur 6y agoI hope I'm not the only one that finds this completely ridiculous. What right does the U.S. Federal Government have to prosecute people who aren't even operating within their jurisdiction? This is nothing but imperialism and a captured government trying to shut down competitors to U.S.-based regulated exchanges from more crypto-friendly countries.
- csomar 6y agoUS imperialism is not new news.
- 317070 6y agoApparently, they are of the opinion that Bitmex did operate in the US: > With the opportunities and advantages of operating a financial institution in the United States comes the obligation for those businesses to do their part to help in driving out crime and corruption.
- roywiggins 6y agoAccording to the indictment they had an office in Manhattan.
- vmception 6y agocaptured government lmao this is pretty default behavior for the US everything anyone told you about the US dollar use being needed to establish jurisdiction was a lie, I have literally only heard that from crypto people, arent these the same people that used to say “litecoin is asic proof because its memory hard” lmao right, not new news. The criminal charges are around the Bank Secrecy Act and Conspiracy to circumvent some Bank Secrecy Act requirements What right? Its not a right its a privilege the US has that most countries around the world will listen to it. Many countries have laws to exercise jurisdiction outside of their borders, they’re just irrelevant. They are irrelevant markets, irrelevant geopolitically, have no resources to pursue or even bother charging people, faces actual consequences from trading partners if they did try, everything is distinctly opposite for the US.
- ciarannolan 6y agoThey had an office in Manhattan and customers in the US. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1323316/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1323316... (Page 8)
- 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- DethNinja 6y agoHow can they know these were USA based customers if they used VPNs?
- roywiggins 6y agoThe press release said they knew, so probably there's written evidence (emails, chat logs) of them discussing having US customers. One way they might know is by seeing people posting online about how they used VPNs to get around the block. Crypto traders are often bad at being subtle. It also alleges that they solicited American customers, which presumably they also have evidence of. For instance, maybe advertising on American websites or posting on forums they knew were frequented by Americans, etc. Maybe they posted winking messages that told Americans how to get around the IP ban? All sorts of possibilities. Edit: from the indictment, page 7: "internal BitMEX records reflected thousands of BitMEX accounts with United States location information that were enabled for trading." So people volunteered their location information to BitMEX. Page 12: "the defendants, knew that specific customers, residing in the United States, continued to access BitMEX' s platform... DELO and DWYER knowingly allowed one of these customers to access BitMEX using a non-U. S. passport in the name of a third party that did not belong to this customer. DELO also allowed another customer to continue to access a BitMEX trading account despite this customer being "US based," because "[h]e's famous in Bitcoin," and falsely changed this customer' s internal country of residence to a country other than the United States."
- ulzeraj 6y agoI’m not from the US. I had an account there and once I’ve logged in to the site through a personal vpn vps located in Texas. They’ve requested KYC data and thread closing my account almost immediately. Happened last year.
- DethNinja 6y agoThanks for the summary, it is good that plaintiff is claiming that with some evidence instead of some blanket statement about existence of VPNs.
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- dagaci 6y agoThere was no synthetic USD, that is clear. What they do is display the average price of BTC from external crypto exchanges. No USD or Synthetic USD was ever exchanged on Bitmex.
- ta1234567890 6y agoAmerica, world police. Some friends started a Wealthfront copycat in latinamerica. To get local financial permits they had to comply with a bunch of KYC policies/rules because the US imposes it on their local banks and governments, and in turn the banks demand compliance from them, even though their company is strictly local.
- roywiggins 6y agoIt's a real issue, but BitMEX operated an office in NYC.
- thebean11 6y agoWeedmaps.com operates an office in NYC too (a site for sourcing marijuana). Not exactly the same thing, but both are businesses with an office in a place they can't actually conduct business.
- ciarannolan 6y agoCan you at least read the article before going full "America bad"? They operated an office in Manhattan and had US customers.
- ta1234567890 6y agoI missed that in the article, could you please provide a quote with the relevant content about the Manhattan office? Thank you.
- ciarannolan 6y agohttps://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1323316/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1323316... Page 8.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agopage 5: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1323316/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1323316... "...the Company also has subsidiaries and affiliates registered in the United States..."
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y agoThey say that BitMEX ran some operations in New York.
- pjc50 6y agoTwo US nationals appeared to be running it, though. Was any of the operation or staff in the US?
- ahupp 6y agoIt's run by Americans, the one arrest so far was in Massachusetts.